ICYMI: Contact your lawmaker; ask them to support caregivers

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Libbie Chapuran

This week at Institute, we’ve asked thousands of senior services professionals to contact their lawmakers and ask them to support caregivers with the wages they deserve. If you missed our call to action at Institute, we invite you to join us today!

We have sounded the alarm bell for years, asking lawmakers to take steps to prepare to meet the needs of our growing senior population. This year, Minnesota will become home to over 1 million seniors, and the urgency for action grows.

With 23,000 positions unfilled, more and more seniors cannot receive the care they need when they need it close to home. The most critical step in addressing our inability to meet the rising demand for senior care services is to raise the wages for professional caregivers.

We call on lawmakers to address the collapse of the senior care system with immediate and permanent solutions. Minnesota's long-term care system needs support from our state partners so we can pay caregivers the wages they deserve and ensure access to care in all the places seniors call home.

With a historic projected budget surplus that has been built in part through the chronic underfunding of senior care wages for more than a decade, it is time to address this issue.

Contact your lawmakers today! Ask them to invest in seniors and their professional caregivers in the 2022 legislative session.

Caregiving is an honorable, essential profession that requires special skills and training. Let's ask our lawmakers to recognize this vital work with meaningful wages that support caregivers and their families.